John Reid: Before I answer those questions, may I express my sincere condolences and those of the whole House to the families and friends of the two soldiers who have died since we last reported to the House: Guardsman Wakefield, from the Coldstream Guards, and Lance Corporal Brackenbury from 1st Battalion The Kings Royal Hussars, who were both tragically killed while doing their duty last month. The thoughts of the whole House are with their families.
	The Government have made unprecedented efforts to encourage and enable service personnel to vote. I have received a very small number of representations in relation to voting arrangements for forces overseas, none of them from serving service personnel.

Tim Loughton: May I also welcome the Secretary of State. I trust that he greeted his appointment with more enthusiasm than he did when he was sent to the Department of Health previously. When so many of our service personnel are promoting and protecting democracy around the world, particularly in Iraq, it is ironic, as my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt) said, and worrying that we received reports that so many of them were disfranchised and prevented from voting in the general election. I am rather alarmed at the complacency that the right hon. Gentleman seems to express, which is at odds with the reports that have come to us from our constituents throughout the country. In view of that and in view of the fact that the comments of the Prime Minister in February, when he said that he personally would look into the matter, seem to have come to nothing, will the Secretary of State now offer to set up an inquiry to see how so few service personnel were entitled to vote and what can be done in the future to make sure that many more of them participate?

John Reid: The hon. Gentleman's decibel level reminds me of the Jesuit who noted on his sermon, next to the bits that he did not believe, "Shout louder." Let me tell the hon. Gentleman that I have raised the issue with servicemen and women, not only here, but on ships, as he says, on aircraft carriers, and in Baghdad and in Basra. He ought to be careful what he says. He asks, "Why not ask them if they were registered"? Whether a person registers is entirely different from whether a person has the opportunity to register. In this country, it is one's right to register or not to register, depending on the circumstances. [Interruption.] I accept that it is a legal requirement, but it is not a failure on the part of the Government if one chooses not to register; it is a failure on the part of the Government if one is not given the opportunity to register. What Opposition Members have been saying—and I am asking them for information—is that servicemen from all three services were not given the opportunity to register. If there are anecdotes and concrete examples of people saying not only that they did not register but that they were not given the opportunity to register, I have already said that I will look into them.

Don Touhig: The whole House shares the hon. Gentleman's concerns but the timing and findings of inquests are, rightly, a matter for coroners themselves, and I recognise that the policy of bringing home all British casualties through RAF Brize Norton has resulted in a very heavy work load for Mr. Gardiner, the Oxfordshire coroner.
	In the case to which my hon. Friend the Member for South Derbyshire (Mr. Todd) referred, I understand that the coroner was able to release the bodies to the families as quickly as possible.
	My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence has been concerned about press reports that there have been delays in holding inquests, and he has therefore written to the families to reassure them. The Government have made it clear that we will provide the extra funds needed so that those inquests can be carried out as quickly as possible. The Ministry of Defence is providing every help and assistance to the coroner and will continue to do so, so that the families can get to know the evidence and circumstances in which those lads died.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I dislike interrupting the right hon. and learned Gentleman but that goes far beyond the question on the Order Paper.

John Reid: There is no doubt that my hon. Friend's concern is shared not only throughout the UK but throughout the world. That is why we have tried to provide vehicles and equipment, as well as the humanitarian aid of which my hon. Friend will be aware as a member of the International Development Committee. We do not believe that enough has been done, and as recently as a week ago, I discussed what more aid we can provide through the EU to the African Union in its mission. At the end of the week, I will do exactly the same with ministerial colleagues at NATO. My hon. Friend can be assured that we take this matter very seriously and want to provide whatever resources we can under the leadership of the African Union.

Dari Taylor: I have been listening carefully to my right hon. Friend's response and am pleased with much of it but are we going to wait for more than 10 years, as we did in the Balkans, for a peacekeeping force to prove its capability? In the Balkans, tens of thousands of Muslims were murdered before we deployed there after 10 years. Is not it time to consider a full deployment now in Darfur?

John Reid: As a general statement, it could be—[Interruption.] Conservative Members, who could not spend even three words in their manifesto discussing this important issue, laugh at that judicious use of words. Of course, we have to use our words judiciously. To my hon. Friend, I say that the answer depends on what we do: if we replace the existing system with a massive increase in our capability, that may not be compatible; if we reduce capability, that may well be compatible. So the answer to the question is precisely as I said: it could well be in line with our existing obligations.

Julian Lewis: Am I alone in having detected in the Secretary of State's first answer a slight contradiction? He quoted the manifesto as stating that his party believed in the continuation of the nuclear deterrent, but went on to say that no decision had been taken in principle on that very matter. The question that he was asked and on which my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard) was right to press him was whether in principle the Government think that this country should continue to possess nuclear weapons as long as other countries have them. Do not the contributions of his colleagues the hon. Members for Bury, North (Mr. Chaytor) and for Leyton and Wanstead (Harry Cohen) show the sort of difficulties that he will run into if he accepts such a principle? As for the Conservative position, I refer the Secretary of State to early-day motion 149, which enunciates that principle. Will he sign it and encourage his colleagues to sign it?

John Reid: I am sure that the whole nation is reassured by the fact that when it went to the polls assuming that there was no nuclear policy it could have referred to early-day motion 149, which outlines one. The hon. Gentleman has been a strong supporter of our independent nuclear deterrent over many years, and I have discussed many issues with him, but he perceives wrongly if he perceives a contradiction in my first two statements. I said, first, that our manifesto commits the Labour Government to the retention of our independent nuclear deterrent, and, secondly, that we had not taken a decision in principle about the replacement of the existing system because that decision, in principle and in practice, must await the outcome of our deliberations, considerations and analysis. I said that that would happen in the context of prevailing international conditions and our obligations under the NPT. He should therefore be in no doubt that the two statements are not contradictory in any way.

Liam Fox: I should like to thank the Foreign Secretary for his statement and for his usual courtesy in making a copy available in advance.
	What we would have liked to see from the Government today is a little less spin and little more humility. The idea that the United Kingdom achieved all its key objectives at the intergovernmental conference or kept our national veto in all key areas of concern is a complete fantasy.
	This constitution is bad for Britain and bad for Europe, and it has now been comprehensively rejected by the people of France and the Netherlands, yet the political dinosaurs at the helm in France and Germany, and the army of Eurocrats whose careers depend on the gravy train, act as though nothing at all has happened. What is it about "no" that they do not understand? I may no longer practise medicine, but I can tell a corpse when I see one, and this constitution is a case for the morgue if ever I saw one. This is a dead constitution.
	What is the response of our Government? Is it to be bold and give a clear direction? No, it is, "We see no point in proceeding at this moment." What does that mean? Do they want to proceed at another moment, or soon, or never? What are they waiting for—a lead from the people of Luxembourg? What it means is that the niceties of EU diplomatic etiquette are being put before sound reason. It is not the hand of history on the Prime Minister's shoulder, but the hand of Peter Mandelson. This complacent, condescending response could have been faxed directly from the offices of Barroso, Chirac or Schröder: "Put your Bill on hold, but don't stop the process. Don't rock the Euro boat."
	The Foreign Secretary said in his statement that it is not for the UK alone to decide the future of the treaty. He is wrong. Rejection by the British people would bring an end to this wretched process. The loss of the constitution is not a crisis for the people of Europe; it is an opportunity. The crisis is a crisis of leadership. While our Government dither about what to do, people in boardrooms up and down this country are trying to make investment decisions, and they want clarity and certainty. Those decisions will affect jobs and prosperity in this country, so let the Foreign Secretary give us some clarity.
	Will the Government, at next week's summit, be pressing for other Governments to declare the treaty dead and bring the ratification process to an end? If not, what will our position be? What will happen to the accession talks during the period of paralysis, and what will be the status of the Bills preparing for the accession of Bulgaria and Romania? More important, will the Foreign Secretary give the House an assurance that there will be no attempt to introduce any part of this constitution by the back door, and that any further transfer of power away from the British people will result in a referendum? Will he give us an assurance that, following the summit next week, the Prime Minister will come to the House and tell us either that the treaty is dead and the ratification process is over or that we will have a referendum so that the British people can add their voice to the voices of the Dutch and the French in rejecting this dated and dangerous constitution?
	Europe is having its "emperor's new clothes" moment, and the voters have seen through the self-serving agenda of Europe's ruling elite. We now need to get on with building a different Europe—a Europe that works with, not against, the instincts of nation states, and in which sovereign countries co-operate where it is in their mutual interests to do so but retain the freedom to act independently when their national interests require it.
	Here in the United Kingdom, only a month after the general election, the centrepiece of the Government's foreign policy has been blown apart. This, as the Foreign Secretary pointed out, is the treaty that the Prime Minister has already signed. He negotiated it in our name, and it was at the centre of his last crusade for a continent. But we have had eight years of the Government getting it wrong on Europe. They were wrong on the euro; the Prime Minister said that
	"the euro is not just about our economy but our destiny"
	—some destiny! They were wrong on the social chapter, wrong to sign away our controls on immigration and asylum and wrong on this constitution. My advice to the Foreign Secretary is, "Have some courage man, and declare this constitution dead".
	We should all thank the Dutch and the French for their liberation from the constitution negotiated by the Prime Minister. The game is now up for Europe's political elite. The people of Europe must be the masters now.

Jack Straw: May I thank the hon. Gentleman for his courtesy at the beginning of his remarks, and take this opportunity—the first I have had—to congratulate him on his appointment as shadow Foreign Secretary?
	I listened with very great care to what the hon. Gentleman said, and much of it seemed simply to be rerunning the arguments of the election of six weeks ago, which he lost. The Conservatives made those arguments central to the election campaign in which they were comprehensively defeated. As for investment decisions and jobs, let me just remind the hon. Gentleman that this Government have one of the finest economic records of any Government in the western world and of any Government in British economic history.
	Let me deal now with the questions that the hon. Gentleman raised. He asks me about our position at next week's summit. We will make judgments about our position at next week's summit—based on the statement that I have made today—much nearer the time. Meanwhile there will be a meeting of the General Affairs and External Relations Council—of Foreign Ministers—on Sunday and Monday, and an opportunity for the House further to discuss the matter when we discuss the forthcoming European Council next Wednesday, 15 June.
	The hon. Gentleman asked me about accession talks during this period. I am pleased to reassure him that these talks will continue. One of the leaders of one of the countries that has expressed publicly in the past some reservations about the possible accession of Turkey, Chancellor Schüssel of Austria, is himself on record as saying that he wishes the negotiations to continue, and I believe that that will be the case.
	The hon. Gentleman asked me whether we are intending to introduce any part of the constitution by the back door. The answer to that is no, we are not, but there is a question here—[Hon. Members: "But."] There is a but. There is a real but for serious Members of the House. I understand the points of engagement and of controversy about this constitution. I would have looked forward to that engagement in the country as a whole. However, many parts of the constitution were reforms that were widely agreed in all parts of the House. For example, there were the proposals to give real flesh to the idea of subsidiarity, the proposals to give national Parliaments a new and better say over EU legislation, and the proposals to provide for yellow cards.
	If the Commission or the Council were themselves to suggest that we should introduce these things by other means, it would be absurd to put such proposals to a referendum. We ought to agree to them straight away.

Jack Straw: The right hon. Gentleman also sat as one of the House's representatives on the Convention and well understands the document. Part of the purpose of the Laeken declaration and of the constitution was to deal with what he describes as the bureaucracy of the EU. That was why, for example, far from the constitution recommending an increase in the number of Commissioners to cope with the increase in the number of member states, it proposed and recommended a decrease. It is also why it proposed a much simplified voting system—one in the interests of the whole of the United Kingdom, I may say, without any question—in place of the convoluted formula that was agreed at Nice. To re-emphasise the point, it contains tangible proposals to improve the way in which this national Parliament and every other national Parliament could scrutinise EU-proposed draft laws. All those were beneficial, and in my judgment—and this is why no apology arises—would have been better for the UK and better for Europe, and far from leading to more waste, would have led to less waste, a streamlined organisation, and what my right hon. Friend the Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook) was speaking about—better and more effective outcomes for the citizens of Europe.

Jack Straw: I thank my right hon. Friend for that sedulous invitation; I think that it requires a period of reflection. [Laughter.] What I would say to him, again, is this: I know and respect the fact that he had a different emphasis from me about this treaty, but I do not recall him ever, for example, objecting to the proposals to strengthen the role of national Parliaments; his objection was that they did not go far enough.

Jack Straw: I am more than grateful to the hon. Gentleman for what he has asked me, as he has exposed his overwhelming hostility not to the constitutional treaty but to the institution of the European Union itself. He says that we should sack Javier Solana. Javier Solana, the high representative of the European Union, was appointed not under the constitutional treaty but under the treaty of Maastricht, recommended by the Conservative party when it was in power. The defence agency, again, is not in the constitutional treaty, but was established under the existing treaty base of Maastricht. All that he has done is expose his unremitting hostility to the EU, which Labour Members, and apparently many Conservative Members, do not share.

Edward Garnier: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. After the statement that we have just had, my point of order may seem rather small beer, but it is right to draw to your attention that item number 2 on the Order Paper today—the programme motion to the Natural Environment and Rural Communities Bill—is not debatable. In the first Second Reading debate in this Parliament, the Government have fallen into their bad old ways. Is there any way that we can protect the ability of the House to scrutinise legislation? Not only are debates on legislation curtailed but we may not even debate whether they should be curtailed.
	Under item number 2, the Bill will complete its proceedings within a little over four weeks. One may say that that is just bad luck, but we were elected here not to watch legislation go through like sausages through a machine, but to scrutinise it. After the farce at the end of the previous Parliament, when a huge number of Government Bills were rammed through this place without proper debate, we should not allow the Government to start the new Parliament in that way.

Angela Browning: As the Secretary of State is to deal with that point, will she also take on board pieces of legislation such as the Government's recent licensing laws, that have had the most adverse effect on the ability to hold functions in village halls? Does rural-proofing extend across all Departments? If so, what changes will she make to ensure that it works in future?

Paddy Tipping: It is interesting to reflect that we have just come through a general election campaign in which the criticism was made, especially by environmental non-governmental organisations, that green issues had been given little priority. I welcome the fact that the first Bill to be given its Second Reading in this new Parliament is one that is precisely about environmental issues. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has worked assiduously to ensure that this Bill gets an early Second Reading, and I compliment her, her team, and many of the officials in her Department, who worked extremely hard to bring this proposal forward.
	The proposals have been widely welcomed. The right hon. Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin) was positive about many aspects of the Bill, although he was critical of others; perhaps I will echo some of those views later. He was destructive about the two new agencies—the commission for rural communities and natural England. I would modestly remind him that the powers of those two bodies are already possessed by English Nature and the Countryside Agency. As my hon. Friend the Member for High Peak (Tom Levitt) said, it has been entirely possible over recent years to deal with the dilemmas and conflicts that arise. The notion behind the Bill—that of DEFRA as an advocate and policy-maker with delivery bodies underneath it—is correct. The right hon. Gentleman is right to say that one cannot entirely distinguish between policy and service delivery, as the two are linked and need to work together.
	Only a few months ago, the Opposition opposed the Second Reading of the Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Bill, and lived to regret that decision. I hope that in Committee we can consider many of the right hon. Gentleman's points, and improve the Bill. The Bill has already been improved—it has been subject to widespread consultation and scrutiny—but I believe that it can be improved even further.
	I want to reflect on the right hon. Gentleman's manifesto, issued at the very recent general election. It said:
	"We instinctively understand the importance of conservation, natural beauty and our duty of stewardship of the earth."
	That is a profound statement, but the right hon. Gentleman's contribution today, in relation to the two new agencies, was profoundly destructive. He gave no prescription for the way forward, and no indication of the kind of institutions that he would like to preserve and enhance our environment. I look forward to the winding-up speeches, when the hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Paice) may do that. I also look forward to the Committee stage, because I think it important for those who propose reasoned amendments also to make reasoned suggestions for a better way forward.
	I was always interested in the comments that the right hon. Gentleman made as shadow Chancellor. I hope that he will do as much for rural communities as he did for his party's well being in the economy, and I believe that in time he will regret his destructive attitude.
	The Bill has been criticised for concentrating on institutional arrangements rather than having a vision of the countryside. We should bear in mind that it springs from a range of other measures, such as the rural strategy, the research on the future of food and farming that was referred to earlier, the mid-term review of the common agricultural policy—a Government achievement that has not received the recognition it deserves—and the work of Lord Haskins. The creation of DEFRA, a body just four years old, also requires thought about the structures we need in order to deliver in the countryside.
	I am interested in natural England, which I think will be an important and powerful body in the countryside. It will face tensions and potential conflict. Clause 2, which deals with general purpose, sets out what natural England will do. It lists five policies that it needs to deliver. The right hon. Gentleman was right to point out that tension and confusion exist, but he should also recognise the importance of setting clause 2 against the guidance given by the Secretary of State.
	I see conflicts between some of the proposals for natural England. There are, for instance, the notions of maintaining and enhancing biodiversity and of promoting access and recreation. Some have argued—the right hon. Gentleman mentioned this—that the Sandford principle must be paramount. I feel that we should reflect on that. We have a countryside that needs to live and work and change. The countryside has always lived and worked and changed; what is important is the timetable for change, and the management of change. I suspect the conflicts set out in clause 2 are not as real as some would have us believe. With good consultation, good land management and a thoughtful approach, hard cases will be few and far between. I agree with the Select Committee that, if biodiversity and conservation are threatened, those interests must be paramount. However, we also need to be clear that the countryside provides a landscape, a background and a fabric for people to visit. There would be no point in having a living, working countryside if people could not have access to it.
	It is vital that natural England should be truly independent. I heard what the right hon. Gentleman said about the guidance set out by the Secretary of State. He will see, however, that the Bill provides for the guidance to be subject to consultation before it is introduced.

Paddy Tipping: The right hon. Gentleman shakes his head. If I can find my copy of the Bill, I will refer him to the appropriate clause, which makes it is clear that the Secretary of State will have to consult natural England and the Environment Agency before guidance is given.

Oliver Letwin: If the hon. Gentleman looks at Hansard in due course, he will see that I very carefully used the term "directions", not "guidance". For the edification of those on the Liberal Benches, clause 15 deals with guidance, and clause 16 deals with directions. There is a procedure for consultation under guidance, there is no such procedure under directions. The only thing that the Secretary of State needs to do in regard to directions is to publish them. That is a lacuna. If the hon. Gentleman is now an ally, at least in seeking to modify the direction power to that extent, that is good news.

Paddy Tipping: Of course I agree with the right hon. Gentleman, the former Chairman of the Select Committee, that it is important that natural England is as independent as English Nature. Let me remind him of the background. He will remember that, when these proposals were announced, there was criticism that English Nature was being disestablished because it had written reports that criticised the Government's approach to genetically modified crops. That was completely wrong. But it is absolutely clear that the staff who work for the new natural England, and the board of natural England, should be totally independent and in a position to criticise the Government. I agree with the right hon. Member for West Dorset when he rightly says that the relationship between natural England and the Environment Agency needs further clarification. Again, that is an issue on which not only is the Secretary of State to issue guidance and direction but on which a good deal of careful work needs to be done by the new body, natural England, and the Environment Agency. That is paramount in the implementation of the water framework directive, which will have a real influence on our landscape and environment. Unless there is a clear understanding between natural England and the Environment Agency of their roles, there is a danger that problems could occur. Again, the Minister would do well to consider that issue during scrutiny of the Bill.
	I need to remind Ministers that the Countryside Agency included a rural advocate section, part of which was the body that rural-proofed Government policy. That has been criticised in the past, but I remind Members of the work that has been done on maintaining small schools and extending broadband across rural areas, rural transport initiatives, and maintaining, with difficulty, rural post offices. Those have been successes. There is a strong case for a body such as the commission for rural communities that acts as a watchdog and that, again, is not frightened to criticise the Government. I am delighted that the Government, following the publication of their response to the Select Committee's report, made it clear that the chairperson of the commission will also be the Government's rural advocate, who has traditionally had direct access to the Prime Minister. It is important that the body is independent and is not afraid to criticise the Government and other public authorities—it must be a body with real teeth, which is not afraid of the consequences of doing so. Part of the guidance that we might consider is enshrining that in legislation.
	I am more concerned about the third leg of the delivery mechanism—the rural development agencies. It is absolutely right that rural development agencies should, in principle, take responsibility for economic development in rural areas. Their experience and history so far, however, has been patchy.

Madeleine Moon: As a Welsh Member, it ill behoves me perhaps to comment on the creation of natural England but, during the recent election, I talked to a lot of regional wildlife recorders in my constituency. They certainly welcomed the proposals that will affect Wales in the Bill. I pick up on my hon. Friend's comment about rural communities. Often, the local wildlife recorders will be the drivers behind local biodiversity issues, and they will be critical to making this Bill a success. All the local wildlife recorders to whom I talked welcomed the provision to extend the duty under section 74 of the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 to conserve and enhance biodiversity to all public bodies. They repeatedly see—I take up the comment that was made by the right hon. Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin) about local authorities being a major force in moving that forward—local authorities put under pressure when planning applications are before them to ignore the biodiversity issues, rather than to enhance them.

David Drew: As always, my hon. Friend speaks with great knowledge of this matter. Having chaired the sub-committee of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, he will know that I raised concerns about schedule 7 and the way in which the different bodies and boards were all subsumed within it. There was discussion about the Agricultural Wages Board being included but, pleasingly, the Government did not go down that road. Does he agree that we must keep that board separate from the new legislation, as it is an important body that needs to be treated in its own right?

Norman Baker: I welcome the fact that the first Second Reading debate of this Parliament is of an environment Bill and I look forward to many more such opportunities during this Parliament.
	When I looked at the Bill with my colleagues, we took the view that, by and large, it was a move in the right direction and contained more good than bad. It was an improvement on the present arrangements and although there were issues to be sorted out, we felt that the Bill was worthy of support on Second Reading. Our conclusion is that we should support the Government if there is a Division later this evening.
	I listened with interest, as I always do, to the right hon. Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin) in his analysis of the Bill and I agree with much of what he said. He listed those sections that were beneficial and moved matters forward, and he was right in that analysis. He then majored on one or two areas about which he had significant concerns. Those concerns are legitimate and he was right to raise them, but I find it difficult to understand why they are of such magnitude that they justify voting against Second Reading. Those concerns appear to be based on clauses 16 to 25 and the issues of the independence of natural England in particular from the Secretary of State and of giving directions.
	The right hon. Gentleman is right to draw the distinction between guidance and directions, and there is a difference in the way in which the Government deal with those matters. It would be advantageous if there were to be consultation on directions, as there is proposed to be on guidance. I hope that an amendment to that effect will be successful in Committee.
	However, I do not see the deep conspiracy in the Government's intentions towards natural England that was seen by the right hon. Gentleman. It is normal for the Government to give directions to arm's length bodies of different departments. Indeed, the difference here is that they are in the Bill; we will know what the directions are. If those directions are an attempt to muzzle natural England and are clearly in response to an effective body that is doing its job as we would expect, that will become apparent and the Government will be discredited as a consequence. I would prefer that there were no directions, but if we are to have them, it is better that they are out in the open, rather than behind the scenes.
	The great difficulty is that the Government's current power to lean on its agencies inevitably exists in any case. It is there through the budget process, the appointment of members and a number of different matters. The right hon. Gentleman appeared to accept that when he suggested that the change in the Environment Agency's position from that set out by Baroness Young to the one represented today was as a consequence of Government pressure. That, however, is under the present regime, where we do not have these matters in legislation but where apparent pressure is being exerted to force an agency to change its view. How much better, in a sense, if that were out in the open.
	I do not dissent form the view of hon. Members around the Chamber that we want natural England to be an independent and effective body, but a relationship with the Government is inevitable and proper. There is bound to be a relationship in terms of the budget and it is better that that be out in the open for scrutiny, rather than behind the scenes, as has so often been the case with quangos. I do not share the fundamental objection to those clauses, and they are open to amendment to try to deal with some of the points that the right hon. Gentleman made.
	In terms of independence, time will tell, but a range of bodies have broadly welcomed the proposals on natural England, and that has been influential in terms of our approach to the Bill. We took into account representations from the Wildlife Trusts, the Environment Agency, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, the National Farmers Union and English Nature, all of which broadly welcomed the creation of natural England. Liberal Democrat Members who support that proposal are more in line with those bodies that understand the issues than are Conservative Members, particularly the right hon. Member for West Dorset. Indeed, we Liberal Democrats claim to speak for the countryside more than the Conservatives on this and many other issues—[Interruption.] On everything, as my colleagues point out—well, on nearly everything: I shall leave a gap in case a claim could be made for them on one or two issues.
	As with any new body, the proof of the pudding will be in the eating. I remember the National Rivers Authority, which was an effective body under the Conservative Government. Indeed, it was too effective, and was abolished by Nicholas Ridley, if I recall correctly. The Environment Agency was then established in its place. It was seen at the time and was clearly designed as an attempt to muzzle the effectiveness of the NRA. As it turned out, the Environment Agency was pretty effective, so if the Conservatives had that objective for the organisation, they clearly failed in that particular case.
	If a variety of functions are transferred to natural England, it will have more clout and be in a better position to stand up for natural countryside issues than even English Nature, which has done a good job, has been. The proof will come when we see how it deals with key issues of importance to the country—I mean the country in both senses of the word. English Nature has a good track record on many issues—for example, in opposing road schemes, as with the Hastings bypass; in standing up against GM crops and the damage that they would inflict on biodiversity; and in opposing Cliffe airport in Kent. I would expect natural England to follow the same line, and there is no reason to believe that it would do otherwise. If the Government started to issue directions to say "Thou shalt not complain about GM crops" or "Thou shalt not oppose road schemes", it would become apparent to many people, and the Government would lose heavily in respect of presentation as a consequence, but I do not believe that that will happen.
	Frankly, the right hon. Member for West Dorset raised this issue as an Aunt Sally, which needs to be knocked down. He knows that I usually have considerable time for him, but I hope that he is not falling into the trap of the previous incumbent of his role. In my short time as Liberal Democrat environment spokesman, I have faced a bewildering succession of Conservative Front Benchers—I have lost track of exactly how many. I hope that the newest incumbent stays for rather longer than his predecessor, but they have all fallen into the trap of opposing for the sake of opposition, as has the Conservative party more widely. The Conservatives opposed the Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Bill and they were forced to change their minds on both Iraq and ID cards. Once again, they seem to be adopting positions in order to justify short-term political gain.
	In contrast, the Liberal Democrats take a principled position on this matter—assessing the Bill on its merits and supporting it on Second Reading, subject to the caveat that we shall table some amendments in Committee, which will be designed to improve the Bill. We will then look at what emerges on Third Reading and decide whether to support the Bill on the basis of what it looks like at that stage. That seems a far more sensible and constructive approach towards the Bill than we have heard from Conservative Members this afternoon.
	Having dealt with the new agency's independence, I shall move on to other issues. The establishment of the so-called commission for rural communities is an important aspect of the Bill and I have to confess to having some sympathy with the Conservative position on it. It is a "guns" rather than a "teeth" body, and it is not clear how effective it will be in championing the interests of the rural communities that it is supposed to represent. Some of the Countryside Agency's powers have been stripped away from it, so it is becoming a very small player in this scene. It seems to me not much more than a shibboleth or a token body, which is there solely to enable the Government of the day to say that they care about and listen to rural communities as evidenced by the establishment of the body. Frankly, in the form proposed in the Bill, it is scarcely worth having. It is neither one thing nor the other; it is neither fish nor fowl. It possesses neither the real teeth nor the powers that it needs to achieve anything worthwhile. Without such powers, it may as well not be there at all. There is the further democratic argument that such powers as it will be allowed could be delivered more properly by local authorities, which, after all, represent people and are accountable to them. Serious questions need to be asked about why the proposed body is justified and whether money could be saved by abolishing it.

David Kidney: I heard on the radio this morning that the shadow Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin), who just got up to leave but has now sat down again, was to make a speech today about beauty. I instantly thought that it would be made in this debate, but my hopes were shattered within minutes when it was announced that it was to be made elsewhere. That is a pity, because we could have enjoyed a great speech from him in a debate on the natural environment in this Chamber. It was left to the Secretary of State to give a wonderful, lyrical description of the great beauty of our natural environment, including the alliteration of Shakespeare's "silver sea". I am sorry that the shadow Secretary of State has come off second best in the Chamber, but I hope that the speech that he delivered elsewhere received the reception that it deserved.
	I was not a member of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee in the previous Parliament and took no part in the pre-legislative scrutiny, but I read the draft Bill and strongly support pre-legislative scrutiny as a general process for this Parliament to follow. It is satisfying to read in the many briefings that I have received in preparation for this debate that so many organisations took part in the pre-legislative scrutiny, making some sensible suggestions that were mirrored in the recommendations of the Select Committee's report. It was also satisfying that, in their response to the Select Committee, the Government accepted many of those suggestions and recommendations. The exchange between the shadow Secretary of State and my hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood (Paddy Tipping) highlighted a case in point. The Select Committee recommended several detailed changes to the provisions on guidance, all of which the Government accepted. That is a positive note on which to begin the passage of the Bill.
	It is important to put the Bill in context as a crucial component of the Government's rural strategy. It is worth reminding ourselves that, among many other good things in that strategy, there is an intention to reduce 100 funding streams to three and to offer farmers a single payment scheme in what is increasingly becoming a whole-farm approach to regulation—be it inspections, audits or funding issues. The Bill contributes to the deregulatory direction of the strategy by bringing the three organisations dealing with the natural environment and conservation into one body and thereby providing one focal point for the customers of the natural environment such as land managers.
	In essence, this is a deregulatory Bill. As my hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood pointed out, this will be the first Bill to receive its Second Reading in this Parliament, and it is a deregulatory Bill. Just as the emphasis on the environment for the first debate in this Chamber is welcome, so is the deregulatory nature of the Bill—keeping promises that the Government have made. As a Bill that deregulates, does away with duplication and streamlines bureaucracy, it is inevitable that the Tories oppose it. I thought that they were in favour of deregulation, but apparently not when it comes to any particular Bill.
	The Bill will be good for sustainable development and the natural environment, and some of the briefings that I have received show just how popular it is. The Wildlife and Countryside Link tells me that it supports the establishment of natural England as
	"a powerful champion for our natural environment".
	The Wildlife Trusts also welcomes the establishment of natural England and points out that we face many challenges in ensuring England's biodiversity, including climate change, protecting the marine environment and regionalisation—I know what it means by that. For example, how far does the natural environment of the coastline extend into the marine environment, especially as the Government propose another Bill on marine issues?
	The Woodland Trust warmly welcomed the Bill, because it foresees that natural England will be a strong and independent body. Its briefing states that it will be a body
	"adopting a landscape scale approach which looks beyond designated sites, allied to a strong focus on adaptation to climate change [and] the possession of a strong regional presence".
	All those issues require our urgent attention, retaining the regional and local focus of some of the work that has been done. We need to be able to withstand the pressures for economic development because the natural environment should come first. I am sure that we will explore such tensions in Committee.

David Kidney: I do not agree for two reasons. First, I was not praising the giving of powers to RDAs, but my RDA in the west midlands for getting better. I made the point that I am not particularly satisfied that the statutory basis for the existence of RDAs is good enough for the roles that we envisage for them. In that sense, I was not praising RDAs, so I am consistent in saying that I prefer those roles to be taken by local government.
	Clearly, the commission for rural communities will not have such roles. It will advise the Government and monitor what happens on the ground, so its role would be valid even if we gave all the new roles to councils, because the Government still need to hear where the problems are and, indeed, where the best practice is, and the commission is the body to have that role.
	I want to remind the Government why local authorities having a greater role in the delivery of those services and rural communities fits with the Government's pronouncements. I shall quote a speech made by the new Minister of Communities and Local Government, my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Miliband), whose speech was obviously so good at Nottingham on 20 May that the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister published it as a pamphlet. Although it was a speech to the English Core Cities Group and it clearly focuses mostly on cities and larger towns, it has universal application because it reminds us all that Labour's last election manifesto said that we would promote effective action even at neighbourhood levels. My right hon. Friend said:
	"Local solutions need to be organised locally, and local government is there to make it happen."
	However, there is another quote that is excellent to pray in aid of my point. He says:
	"The modern world places a premium on people and places who or which have knowledge, creativity and networks, so countries which succeed will be those where there are many points of dynamism and innovation, not a single national plan. That is why I see local government as a key agent not just to help central government deliver on national priorities, but as a leader and shaper of local priorities."
	I wholly endorse that statement, which should apply to this issue as to any other.
	I shall move on—a slight digression—to give a case study of the kind of problem that rural areas come up against frequently and need people to help them to cut through to the necessary outcome. The Staffordshire biomass project, which hon. Members may have seen featured prominently on Channel 4 news just yesterday, involves more than 40 farmers who farm more than 1,200 hectares in Staffordshire. They plant miscanthus—elephant grass—to burn to produce power and, later, heat as well. An industrial estate will be an end user.
	The scheme will be carbon neutral because the growing elephant grass takes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, just as burning the grass creates carbon dioxide. The scheme meets many of the Government's policy objectives, such as those on climate change; on farmers diversifying, into growing non-food crops in this case; and on science and innovation leading to new industries and jobs—for example, Talbott's Heating Ltd. of Stafford makes the converters that burn the crops, creating the heat and power.
	The project has been good enough to receive grants from DEFRA and the Department of Trade and Industry, yet those involved are still unable to secure its future, although it is a wonderful addition to our renewable energy sources in this country, partly because the excess electricity produced by the scheme needs to be sold into the grid and the project cannot find an electricity company that is willing to guarantee it a long enough contract at a high enough price to make the scheme stack up.
	Thus Government help is needed to extend the system of renewal obligation certificates beyond the current end date of 2017. A review of the renewables obligation is under way, and more people need to be given access to renewable obligation certificates so that such projects need not go to third parties for support. Perhaps the Government need to use their good offices to lend a helping hand to secure the use of biomass to generate electricity. Failing that, perhaps the Government need to ensure a minimum price for producing electricity with that source of energy, just as they guarantee a minimum price for renewable energy provided by the emerging tidal and wave technology.
	I hope that the Minister can take away from the debate the fact that there are some serious issues in Staffordshire right now that involve a renewable energy project that meets all the Government's obligations and yet is still not secure, although it wants to be, and the Government can do much to help it to ensure that it is.
	All that shows my role as a rural advocate, until we have the commission to do such work for me, but I now want to measure the Bill against the rural delivery review of 2003. A quote from Haskins is worthy of repeating. On page 8 of the report he said:
	"I would like to see rural delivery in England becoming much more decentralised than it is, with key decisions being taken at regional and local levels. This is where services can most effectively address public need and where deliverers can be held more clearly to account."
	The Bill and the rural strategy contain some movements towards the views stated by Haskins, especially in clarifying the roles for policy making and delivery, but is enough in place to establish the regional and local accountability that he called for in his report? I am not sure whether we are there yet, and I hope that we can examine that in detail in Committee. Haskins reminded us that the direct customers of the new set up will include land managers, non-land-based rural businesses and rural communities, but he helpfully reminds us, too, of the indirect beneficiaries—all the visitors to the countryside every year, those who live and work in rural areas and, indeed, taxpayers, who pay for those services.
	I am backing the Bill, which will make the most of our natural environment—the beauty of our landscape, the marvel of its biodiversity and the human desire to enjoy both—while contributing to helping farmers reconnect with markets and strengthen their role in the food chain, and supporting myriad other rural enterprises. Rural businesses are now growing at a greater rate than those in urban areas. The Bill will also stand up for the quarter of the population who live in rural locations, while facilitating visitors—obviously, sustainable tourism only is required—to our countryside. More than 1 billion visitor days contribute over £10 billion a year to local economies. This is the sort of Bill that can made rural winners of us all.

Robert Key: The health and sustainable prosperity of the countryside and rural economy are extremely important to my constituents in south Wiltshire. That was evident during the general election campaign. I spoke at 22 public meeting during the campaign, and I assure hon. Members that the environment featured at every one of them, because I made sure that it did, and important questions were raised and discussed.
	Although I had hoped to see a Conservative Member of Parliament representing South Dorset, it is nevertheless a great pleasure to welcome the Under-Secretary, the hon. Member for South Dorset (Jim Knight), to the Dispatch Box tonight. It will be a pleasure doing business with him. It is reassuring to know that there is Member of Parliament for central southern England who represents the broader views of our part of the country in his Department, and I wish him well.
	I was quite overwhelmed that I had briefings from 16 different organisations for this debate on Second Reading, from the National Gamekeepers Organisation to the Woodland Trust and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and all the others. This is a matter of intense importance to a very large number of people. I therefore broadly welcome most of the Bill. I share the reservations expressed by my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin) and therefore will have pleasure in supporting his amendment.
	One of the first things that I should like to mention—I plan to be mercifully brief—is the machinery of Government issue. Haskins had a good point when he said that how delivery took place was very important to those who would be empowered by the function at stake; but, too often in this country, we simply have not made up our minds about whether we want to have centralised power in Whitehall or whether we genuinely want to devolve decision making, and the money that goes with it, to local authorities.
	I hope very much that, in thinking about the way forward for the Conservative party in the coming months, we will at least be able to say that the time has surely come to reverse the trend of the past 20 years, to my certain knowledge—I was part of it, as a Local Government Minister—to centralise, but we must ensure that the money follows. That is always the problem. We can have great discussions with local authorities, the Local Government Association and all the others, but in the end, the Treasury has the finger on the till.
	My right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset might think that it is not a very good idea to establish natural England and to give it a lot of fairly arbitrary power, but the position could be worse. Only last week, when I was in France observing the remarkable referendum proceedings, I spoke to Mr. Arnaudinaud, the mayor of St. Michel l'Ecluse et Leparon, and he told me the frustrations of being a mayor in a devolved local government system. He said that he was responsible for the delivery of environmental policies for forests in his commune. Two years ago, his and 29 other communes obtained the signatures of three Government Ministers for a project for the satellite observation of fires in the forest areas of south-west France. However, because of all the local government interests, the brakes were on at every turn and the project still could not be delivered even though the Ministers' signatures and the money were lined up. The position could be worse, and I was able to assure him that we did not do business like that in England. I hope that I am right.
	Above all, as an old-timer in this place, I want to say how much I appreciate the quality of the specialists and scientists in the Countryside Agency, and particularly English Nature. I have worked with them for many years, and they are absolute stars. I hope very much that their work will be valued in the transition that will occur.
	I agree that the commission for rural communities will have a lot of functions that could have been given to local government. If we wish to see how not to do it, we need only to look at the South West regional assembly in my region to see how locally elected councillors at county and district level feel that they have been disempowered by the process. Although they are indirectly represented, much of the power to make decisions affecting planning, schools and transport is now at the regional assembly, rather than local authority, level. I wish the councillors well none the less.
	The second point that I wish to make is about clause 40 and biodiversity. I am delighted to see this provision as it represents important progress. I welcome the clause, but I wish that it went a little further. It says that local authorities must "have regard" to biodiversity, but I hope that, in Committee, we will be able to persuade the Government to say that local authorities should "further biodiversity". "Have regard" does not mean anything at all except "Good morning. What a nice day", but a provision furthering biodiversity would be welcomed by wildlife trusts across the country and by the Wiltshire Wildlife Trust in particular.
	On a good day, local authorities already provide quite a lot of taxpayers' money for such functions. For example, in my area the Wiltshire Wildlife Trust receives money from the county council and Salisbury district council for the biological record centres that are vital if local authorities are to know where the rich wildlife sites are or, indeed, used to be. Such centres are a key data tool for biodiversity protection, enhancement and restoration as well as making it possible to produce all the reports that are now necessary. The county and district contribute to the biological record centres, the wildlife sites project, ecological footprint studies by volunteers and so on.
	Quite a lot of money is going in, and I am pleased to see that the clause makes it clear that the term "local authorities" specifically includes parish councils. I would be grateful if the Minister could say something about how he envisages the role of parish councils. They are an important part of our local government structure. I know that it is true that 50 per cent. of our country is not parished. Those of use who represent parished areas perhaps do not realise that, but it is true. We therefore need to be a bit clearer on what the role of parish councils might be.
	My third and final comment is about part 6 and rights of way. I should declare an interest as a fully paid-up member of the Motorcycle Action Group. Although I do not ride a motor bike, when I was Minister for Roads and Traffic, I formulated motor cycling policy and became quite a convert to the activity. I remain a convert and champion of it, and that is why I was disappointed that the British Motorcyclists Federation put out a press release last week deploring the Government's actions in respect of rights of way. We must tackle the issue head on and go for an early commencement date. My highway authority, Wiltshire county council, has been inundated with hundreds of applications—I think 400 in that area alone—and it is a serious issue.
	We must make it clear to those who use our lanes what they are doing. More than a year ago, I spent a day with an off-road club four-by-fouring in south Wiltshire's green lanes. I talked to trail bikers, had meetings with them and tried to understand where they were coming from. Many of them are responsible, genuine, careful people who do much good in supervising rallies and so on, and some of them—especially the Trail Riders Fellowship—mend tracks, keep back hedges and keep roads open. However, they are let down by the vast majority who do not act in that way and who have ruined miles and miles of ancient, historic and beautiful rights of way in my constituency and right across the south of England and beyond. It is a tragedy that that has happened, and I feel that most of those people have no idea of the damage that they do. It is totally inappropriate to put powerful bikes or four-by-fours on to very delicate surfaces that are only earth tracks most of the time. Many tracks have no foundations, and they are ruined for ever.
	Many of the riders do not realise the significance of the routes that they use; they do not look at the maps and realise that they might be running along a road that went from Lincolnshire to the south coast in pre-Roman times. As in the case of Mack's lane in Grimstead in my constituency, the riders are interested only in opening up another 400 m so that they can power their vehicles through and get a thrill from it. I am sorry, but that has got to stop, otherwise those tracks will not exist for future generations. I hope that the riders will understand that, in the interests of the majority, we simply have to say no.
	If anyone doubts that the majority is involved, I can tell them that, 18 months ago, I was contacted by 100 per cent. of the parish councils in my area and 100 per cent. of them said that we had to stop such activities. They said Parliament had a duty to them and to future generations to stop the conflict between pedestrians, horse riders and people with buggies and those who wish to use totally inappropriate motor vehicles.

John Mann: A work permit system needs to ensure that people are able to work in the UK if there is a demand for them, and that those people are working legally. It is not only farmers in the rural section of my constituency who demand this. Horse traders, for example, are demanding the ability to bring in jockeys from Mauritius, but they have been barred from doing so by the Home Office. The trainers' case is that there are not enough small men in England to train the future Derby and Grand National winners, for example. There should be a board to examine the pay and conditions of such people to ensure that they are here legally and properly remunerated. That may go beyond the scope of the Bill, but I am sure that there will be the opportunity to consider such matters in greater detail in Committee.
	I am more confident that the Government will be prepared to examine that issue than the next matter that I raise, which is land ownership. I spent a rather pleasant three days in the Brecon Beacons. I am not sure whether I was in the constituency of the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Mr. Williams). I saw his rather garish orange-bedecked office while I was there. During more pleasant times in the past few days, I took the opportunity legally to trample on some of the land now open to us mere commoners. I noted that some of the routes that have historic rights, which could previously be walked, were the coffin roads. These roads took people from the collieries of south Wales back to agricultural lands. These were the bodies of people who died in the early days of the mining industry. They worked in terrible conditions.
	In my constituency, the dukeries had many such collieries. There were the four dukes who owned, and still own, most of the land. They profited greatly. A modest contribution that the Government could contemplate would be to take the ethos of private ownership and emancipation a stage further by allowing tenant farmers, who for centuries have farmed the land in my area, the opportunity to buy the land—for a modest, reasonable and perhaps peppercorn price—that they and their families have farmed so that they may become farmer owners rather than farmer tenants.
	In some ways, that was a demand of the original Labour party in its early days and going back to the 1890s. The third-term Labour Government have an opportunity to examine issues of land ownership and to show that our party is the friend of the farmer, particularly the tenant farmer. Such people should be given the opportunity of ownership and entrepreneurship. Their land should not able to be disposed of by the diktat of a landowner; they should be able to benefit their families by bequeathing their land—not just the tenancy—from father to son or father to daughter. Judging by the nods I see from Opposition Back Benchers, I am sure that such a proposal would have all-party support.
	It seems to me that there could be no more populist cry from all quarters of the House than the right to gas. In my four years in Parliament, I have been amazed that the House has not promoted the right to gas more strongly. We know much about the subject—4.5 million of our constituents across Britain do not have a gas supply. I hope that the Labour party will have the wisdom to include such a right in our next election manifesto, if it cannot be squeezed into the Bill or some other measure. To give people in all parts of the country, and particularly in areas such as mine, the right to gas would be a very popular move, especially in rural communities and mining villages that do not have access to a gas supply. It is clear that suppliers in the so-called competitive gas market are not interested in extending their supply to more remote villages, but are content merely to compete in areas that already have a supply or new estates. We should give the whole population the right to gas.
	Part 6 deals with an issue that I have raised many times. Many right hon. and hon. Members signed my early-day motion on the subject—[Interruption.]—and I am sure that the hon. Members heckling me were among the first to sign it when I resubmitted it in this Parliament. It urges the Government to tackle the menace of motor bikes and quad bikes on our bridleways and footpaths. We raised the problem in an unsuccessful ten-minute Bill in the last Parliament, early-day motions, Adjournment debates and contributions to other debates. I spoke about it on many occasions and raised it privately with Ministers. We have to deal with the legal anomaly that has allowed organised groups—in particular, the Trail Riders Fellowship and the Land Access and Recreation Association—to submit thousands of applications to upgrade a bridleway or footpath to a byway open to all traffic, based merely on the existence of an historical right for horses and carts to use them. In the Littleborough area of my constituency, that historical right is based on the route of a Roman road. If such a right is deemed to exist, an application can lead to a route being upgraded automatically, with no other factors—opposition to the application, environmental damage, present land use, other uses of the footpath or bridleway, or changes in the built environment—being taken into consideration. After such an upgrade, any motorised vehicle can be used on the route.
	That loophole needs to be closed and I am pleased to see that action is being taken. I hope that the Standing Committee will examine the matter in minute detail to ensure that in closing one loophole, we do not open another. The problems do not arise from nowhere. Highly organised groups are involved. Their websites contain clear advice from solicitors and others on how to submit an application or applications to cover every part of an area. In some areas in my constituency, 20 or 30 applications have been made in respect of land that completely surrounds a village. That has happened before many of the historical maps have been fully examined; the applications submitted so far are the easy ones.
	The public meetings that I held in my constituency during the election campaign and will continue to hold attracted mass turnouts and strong views were expressed—people are demanding action. Horse riders told of their horses being spooked by a quad bike, motor bike or four-wheel drive vehicle. The idea that the drivers of such vehicles are present in the area at random is false. My investigations in the Warsop area in my constituency—a group of mining villages plagued by the problem—revealed an organised competitive sport. White vans appear, motor bikes and scrambling bikes without number plates are taken out and raced around for an hour or two, then they are put back in the van and off they go. People are paying to be taken to my constituency and elsewhere to conduct their activities.
	I urge caution regarding the concept of organised places for such activities. In my experience, people who want to go off road do not want to go to organised sites. In Nottinghamshire, we have the desert—an organised site for driving quad bike and 4x4s. The problem is the illegal activity that takes place in an 80-mile radius around the desert. People might dip into the legal or semi-legal site, but then they leave it.

John Mann: I thank my hon. Friend for that clarification, which shows that we should be tackling the menace even more vigorously. The police in my area have argued that areas such as the desert can be a legal magnet, which will draw people into one place. They seem to think that people will go to the area—perhaps in smaller white vans—to participate in a legal activity. However, whether the land is public or private, that argument is fallacious. People going off road do not want to participate in organised events on certain tracks; they want to go off road. Such a magnet simply attracts people into breaking the law, whether deliberately or inadvertently.
	We should also consider the growth in quad bike ownership. In the constituency of the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire, I saw farmers on quad bikes going about their lawful business, but many of the quad bikers in my area terrorise the community. Now, quad bikes are explicitly advertised for sale to under-7s. They are a growing menace that requires additional action under crime and disorder legislation.

John Mann: The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point, which is exemplified by some of the websites. I have received quite a large number of hostile e-mails, some of them helpfully directing me to websites, and some of the websites I have looked at glorify the creation of such problems. For some people, though not all, the creation of particularly large—one might say spectacular—ruts in a footpath or bridle- way is exactly the enjoyment that they are looking for. I walked the Pennine way last summer. As one crosses the north Yorkshire section, one sees where motorbikes have deliberately created routes that are perhaps more exciting to ride, but a great danger to a mere pedestrian, never mind a horse-rider.

Robert Goodwill: As the new Member for Scarborough and Whitby, I am grateful for the opportunity to make my maiden speech on a subject of key importance to many of my constituents who, like me, live and work on the land. Before I do so, however, I shall respond to the comments of the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) with regard to trail riding. As we heard, trail riding is often illegal and certainly takes place without the landowner's permission. It desecrates many of our rights of way, and it is rightly to be condemned.
	However, the exhortation in Trials and Motocross News to vote Conservative was in connection with trial riding, the sport of Yorkshire hero Dougie Lampkin, which is done with the landowner's permission and is a sport that should be encouraged. The problem with that was not the use of green lanes, but the DEFRA guidelines on cross-compliance on the single farm payment. I am pleased that Ministers have seen some sense and relaxed those rules. There are still one or two outstanding issues relating to waterlogged land, where we need further clarification. Also, people who wish to practise on their own land are currently restricted to 28 days per year, so we need a little more flexibility from the Government.
	I am blessed to have been elected to represent such a magnificently beautiful constituency. I am sure many right hon. and hon. Members have had occasion to visit Scarborough and Whitby. Scarborough is the classic family holiday resort, with the combination of Victorian elegance and 21st century excitement—[Laughter.] My hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, East (Mr. Ellwood) has obviously been there—possibly on a Saturday night. Scarborough is the home of the oven chip. A thousand tonnes of potatoes are processed every day, which, combined with the harvest of our sadly much depleted fishing fleet, provide the quintessential seaside fare that so many come to enjoy. Forty-five miles of magnificent countryside contain such gems as Robin Hood's Bay, Cayton and Staithes, but the jewel in the crown must be Whitby, the home port of Captain Cook, the place where Dracula made landfall, and the resort voted No. 1 weekend holiday destination by the readers of Saga Magazine, a publication with which, I am sure, many hon. Members and certainly many Members in another place are familiar. There is friendly rivalry between Whitby and Scarborough—the editorials in the Whitby Gazette invariably refer to my constituency as the Whitby and Scarborough constituency.
	Recently, my constituency received national prominence as the location for Yorkshire Television's series "Heartbeat". Aidensfield is in fact Goathland, which is served by the north Yorkshire moors railway, and the railway itself features as the Hogwarts express in the Harry Potter films. Sixty per cent. of the north Yorkshire moors national park lies in my constituency, where the north Yorkshire moors railway travels.
	Being such a beautiful part of the world has its downside. The average price of a house in the north Yorkshire moors national park is £235,000, well beyond the reach of many working people in the countryside.
	My predecessor, Lawrie Quinn, is a railway engineer, and in the House he took particular interest in rail transport. Lawrie Quinn was the first Labour Member to represent Scarborough after nearly a century of Conservative representation. I am pleased to say that none of the name-calling and personal vitriol that sometimes characterised the national campaign spilled over into our local campaign in Scarborough and Whitby, which was carried out in the best traditions of British democracy. Lawrie Quinn was a hardworking Member of Parliament and loyal to his party. Perhaps that was his problem. On behalf of my constituents, I put on record their gratitude for all he has done over the past eight years.
	Lawrie Quinn's maiden speech was on the subject of agriculture. I was a candidate in the 1997 election in Leicestershire, and I wish I had 10 bob for every time a farmer said to me in that election that farmers always do better under a Labour Government. I did not hear those comments in 2005. The Yorkshire countryside, which is often gold with fields of wheat, green with shoots or yellow with the oil-seed rape that has recently become part of our countryside, in 2005 was blue with the posters of my supporters in the countryside.
	Farming has seen many changes since my family came on to our farm in north Yorkshire in 1850. In my own lifetime, we have seen deficiency payments replaced by intervention buying, which in turn was superseded by the integrated administration and control system—IACS—and set-aside. Now we have the chaotic birth of the single farm payment. In her response to Lord Haskins' report, the Secretary of State heralded the report as a less bureaucratic framework for applicants. I wonder how many hard-pressed staff at DEFRA regional service centres would agree. Given the choice between an area-based scheme and a history-based scheme, the Secretary of State opted for both, giving us double the number of forms to fill in.
	The single most exciting event on my farm in the past century was the construction of a land army hostel, which was very popular with the local lads, during the second world war. We now have a new kind of land army in the countryside: it is not made up of sturdy lasses from the west riding driving Standard Fordsons; it is a new army of bureaucrats with clipboards clutched to their chests. I know that the Bill promises to cut red tape, but having read the entry-level stewardship handbook, which relates to a scheme that natural England will administer, I know that the reverse will be the case, and I wonder how many anoraks the author of that document owns.
	The entry-level scheme makes the Domesday Book look like an unambitious project. DEFRA's new Domesday Book will log every tree, ditch and hedge in the United Kingdom, but what will be the environmental gain? Shortly after I was elected, I attended a roadshow organised by DEFRA. I went incognito as a farmer and sat at the back, where I was interested to hear that under the entry-level scheme most farmers will not have to do anything that they are not already doing—other than filling in forms to qualify for the £30 per hectare payment. Surely such a scheme should produce a greater environmental gain. Farmers who attended that roadshow questioned the value of a scheme by which we fill in forms and continue to do what we are already doing in order to qualify for money.
	Farmers and sportsmen have created the British countryside—I am a pro-hunting campaigner who has entered this Chamber by more conventional means than some—and the people who create the countryside environment that we enjoy need less red tape, not more, which I fear that this Bill will deliver.

Lee Scott: I am grateful for the opportunity to make my maiden speech in this debate on the Natural Environment and Rural Communities Bill.
	I begin by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Mr. Goodwill) on his maiden speech, and I pay tribute to the work done for my constituency by my Labour predecessor, Mrs. Linda Perham, who held Ilford, North from 1997 to 2005. I also mention Vivian Bendall, who was Mrs. Perham's predecessor and who held the seat as a Conservative Member for 19 years. Both of my predecessors worked tirelessly for local people, and I wish Mrs. Perham every success in the future, although that does not include success in Ilford, North.
	It is a huge privilege to be elected by the people of Ilford, North and an even greater honour to represent the areas in which I have lived for most of my life. I will work hard to match the efforts of previous MPs and to serve the interests of my constituents. Some of my predecessors are hard acts to follow. Part of my constituency was previously included in the Wanstead and Woodford seat, which was represented by my right hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hampshire (Mr. Arbuthnot) and before that by Lord Jenkin of Roding. Looking further back, that part of the seat was also represented by Sir Winston Churchill, an act that it is impossible to follow.
	My constituency is composed of eight local government wards in the London borough of Redbridge in east London. Ilford, North borders the county of Essex, and it runs from Woodford Bridge and Roding in the west, through Clayhall, Fullwell and Barkingside and on to Aldborough, Fairlop and Hainault in the east. If hon. Members ever need to find my constituency, it covers most of the stations on the eastern end of the Central line.
	Ilford, North is home to many licensed London black cab drivers. The M11 runs through the constituency and the A12 provides its southern boundary. It is an area from which large numbers of commuters come and through which a larger number of commuters pass, which is why projects such as Crossrail and the docklands light railway extension are vital for the area.
	Ours is a diverse community made up of many different cultures and religions, and we all get along very well. I believe that we are a beacon for others to follow, and my constituency is renowned for the harmonious relationships among the people who live there.
	I want to recognise the enormous value of the work undertaken by the voluntary sector in Ilford, North. Without their substantial efforts, our community would be a much poorer place, because they make a massive contribution to the quality of life of so many people. I must mention four organisations in particular, although that is not to the detriment of other organisations in the area. First, the Hainault youth action group gives hope to young people and keeps them off the streets. With its help, we have built a skate park and a cycle track, which are situated away from residential areas and which do not result in antisocial behaviour. Secondly, the Open Door project in Barkingside allows young people to visit a place where they can drop in and have a good time after school, which, again, keeps them off the streets. Thirdly, the Chahad drugs line is a centre that is open to the whole community to try to stop the blight of drugs. Finally, Redbridge victim support, which I am honoured to be part of, helps victims of crime.
	Redbridge has an enviable reputation for the quality of its education service with successful schools that continue to attract large numbers of pupils from across and, indeed, outside the borough. I have the privilege of serving as chairman of governors at Clore Tikva school, and I know and recognise the immense value to a child of a first-class education.
	I had the honour and the privilege to serve as cabinet member for regeneration and the community on Redbridge council from 2002 to 2005—I must admit that I did not mind relinquishing that position to enter this House. In that role, I learned the importance of listening to the views of local people and taking those views on board in setting out plans and making decisions. As Ilford, North's MP, I pledge to continue to listen to all residents' views.
	During the recent general election campaign, I promised my constituents that I would hold regular open forums open to all local residents to discuss important issues that impact on Ilford, North. Two weeks ago, more than 150 people attended a regeneration forum, which is a sure sign that people remain interested and involved in local issues.
	There are many explanations why turnout at elections is so low. My view is that we, as politicians, must give people a reason to trust us. When we make a promise, we should do all in our power to ensure that we deliver on it. We can get people to re-connect with political processes, and we must get people to re-connect with political processes.
	During the election, I had many visitors, including Lord Tebbit, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Devizes (Mr. Ancram) and my hon. Friend the Member for Romford (Andrew Rosindell) and his dog Spike. I want to stop a rumour here and now—Spike did not eat any of my opponents' supporters.
	More than two years ago, I was selected as the prospective parliamentary candidate for Ilford, North. In that time, we produced many leaflets and local questionnaires seeking the views of and input from residents. Local people raised many issues that concern them, and crime, the health service, the congestion charge, tube fares and high taxes came up again and again, but one issue made the top three anxieties in every survey.
	It may seem odd that a Member of Parliament who represents a suburban east London constituency wants to join a debate on rural affairs. Aldborough ward in Ilford, North contains farms, although I must confess that there are only two of them. However, my constituency is blessed with a number of open green spaces. Roding and Bridge wards have the Roding valley park; there is Hainault Forest country pack and Fairlop plane; Fullwell is backed by Claybury forest; and even Barkingside and Clayhall have their parks and playing fields, while the streets have a tree-lined aspect. Ilford, North has a fundamental link to many rural constituencies and to almost all urban ones. The issue that was raised most frequently by my constituents over the past two years is the threat posed to our open spaces by current planning laws.
	In recent years, a great deal of new building and redevelopment has taken place in my constituency. Some of it has been sympathetically finished, reflects the character of the local area and matches the desires and needs of local people. I single out for particular praise the sensitive conversion of the old Claybury hospital buildings, which has turned them into desirable modern apartments and ensured that the magnificent buildings continue to be used, and the Newbury Central development, which includes a number of affordable homes.
	Areas of green belt land and other open spaces have been built on, and blocks of flats are being shoehorned into small spaces. There are plans, which are currently with the Deputy Prime Minister, to build an all-weather racecourse with a colossal stand. My predecessor and I opposed that racecourse, which is the last thing that Ilford, North needs.
	I do not want to stop progress, and we cannot stop making provision for people's changing needs, but a lot more power should be given to local views when planning permission is sought. I feel very strongly about the way in which local democracy is trampled on by current planning laws. Where is the justice in local wishes being overturned by inspectors, except in extremely rare cases of overriding national interest? Local authorities must be given powers to control their own destiny. They must be given powers to ban mobile phone masts in heavily residential areas. Local councillors are constantly blamed for decisions that are beyond their control, and councils can have costs awarded against them when locally welcomed decisions are overturned on appeal.
	Implementing planning reforms would be a real step towards local democracy. We must take care of the future needs of our residents but also encourage development on brownfield sites, not on our green fields. However, we must have a definition of "brownfield" that does not include existing perfectly habitable homes and their gardens. All too often, family homes are demolished and replaced by huge blocks of flats that end up occupying the whole site. As that practice continues it destroys the local character of the area. Furthermore, these high-density developments put an undesirable and detrimental strain on the local infrastructure such as transport, hospitals and schools. The only way forward is radically to alter the balance in planning decisions. Far more weight needs to be given to the views of local residents and the decisions of local councillors on planning matters, as those people know the local area better than a visiting inspector. Planning authorities and builders must work together with community groups to ensure that we build quality homes that people can afford to live in.
	Madam Deputy Speaker, thank you again for allowing me to make my maiden speech in this debate. I thank the people of Ilford, North for having faith in me in electing me, and I promise that I will not let them down.

Martin Horwood: I congratulate the hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Mr. Goodwill) on his maiden speech. I also congratulate the hon. Member for Rugby and Kenilworth (Jeremy Wright), who may know that that the first competitive rugby match was played between a team from his constituency and a team from mine. I am sure that that spirit of friendly competition will continue, although possibly with less physical contact.
	I especially congratulate the hon. Member for Ilford, North (Mr. Scott) on his maiden speech. I support his call for no more racecourses in Ilford. Please send your punters to Cheltenham: that will be no problem. He also set an important precedent in this debate on rural communities by stressing the importance to urban populations of rural England. Cheltenham, too, is not precisely a rural constituency, although it sits in what I would describe as probably the most beautiful countryside in England, nestling as it does on the edge of the Cotswold hills. It is important to note, however, that there are green spaces on the fringes of Cheltenham. The Countryside Agency, which is based in my constituency, stresses that 10 per cent. of the United Kingdom's land area is urban fringe, and that 50 per cent. of all visits to the countryside are made within five minutes of people's homes. Both rural and urban green spaces are important to people in towns.
	I join the hon. Members for Stafford (Mr. Kidney) and for Salisbury (Robert Key) in paying tribute to the work of the Countryside Agency, which has extremely skilled staff. If Ministers are looking for somewhere to locate the headquarters of either of their new quangos, I offer Cheltenham as the best possible location. After all, one would not want the headquarters to be too close to one's own office; that might raise suggestions of partiality. The agency, however, was a little premature in releasing its 10-year strategy in 2001. As with a few other quangos, the Government managed to set it up and abolish it in a remarkably short time. I hope that the new agencies will have a longer shelf life than the Countryside Agency in its current form. Like other Members, I fear that they may not have the same clear, independent remit as some of their predecessors and will not enjoy their specific terms of reference. I fear that the objectives of those predecessors may be diluted in these new super-agencies.
	The Secretary of State said that she wanted an independent rural advocate, adviser and watchdog, which would also be responsible for ensuring that Government policy made a difference. The two requirements strike me as somewhat incompatible: either the body will serve Government policy, or it will be an independent watchdog. Certainly I see nothing in chapter 2, relating to the commission for rural communities, that establishes it as an independent advocate, adviser and watchdog. That was, in part, the Countryside Agency's role, and—I am sure that the hon. Member for Ilford, North agrees with this—it made the point that the countryside was not there just for those in rural communities. It seems that the new commission will serve only the interests of those people, whereas the agency's role was explicitly to serve those who visited the countryside. It valued the contribution that the countryside could make to them.
	I want to say a little about decentralisation and partnership. The Secretary of State said that she wanted to reduce bureaucracy, and the Haskins report praised the corporate example, saying that responsibility for delivery should be allocated
	"to those who are most competent and best placed to influence things"
	—in other words, to those on the front line. Commenting on the Bill, however, the Countryside Agency identified problems in the roles and responsibilities being allocated, particularly those involving regional development agencies. It said that the roles and responsibilities of regional and sub-regional bodies needed serious clarification and that time was needed for those bodies to adapt. It said that there was
	"a risk of a hiatus, that much good work will be lost and that rural areas may suffer during this implementation period."
	My worry is that the countryside may suffer even more after implementation, because of the increased role of the regional development agencies. That is the way in which regional government seems to be developing under the present Administration. In London and Scotland, elected assemblies have taken powers down from Whitehall. I fear that, as has happened in the south-west, an agglomeration of unelected regional bodies will take powers up from local councils. We have the apparatus of the South West regional development agency, the South West regional assembly and the Government office for the south-west, which constitute a great concentration of power and currently act as bully boys for the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister—if he needs bully boys—in supporting the plans for unsustainable development around Cheltenham and Gloucester, using as a starting point a document that looks green but is not. I have a copy here.
	Only last week, hundreds packed a public meeting in my constituency to object to the development of urban fringe green spaces near the community of Leckhampton, which is in both my constituency and that of the hon. Member for Tewkesbury (Mr. Robertson). There was huge opposition to that development. Tewkesbury borough council, which had initially given permission for it, had been bounced into it by the Government office of the south-west, acting on the instructions of the Deputy Prime Minister. Because the green space in question is so close to an urban area, it is not green belt and does not enjoy the same protection, but it is nevertheless of distinct and beautiful rural character, and all the more valuable for being on the fringe of an urban area.
	If the Bill supports the defence of green land and green spaces on the fringes of towns, it will have my support, and I will join the many bodies, such as the Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust, that have given it broad support. I cannot support the Conservative amendment, because it strikes me as factually wrong. It says that no priority is given to the protection of the natural environment, although the first priority of natural England is the promotion of nature conservation and the protection of biodiversity and the second is the conservation and enhancement of the landscape. Those are objectives with which I agree, but I hope that the Bill will be improved in Committee and in its implementation, to ensure that my concerns are addressed.

James Paice: This is an important Bill for the English and Welsh countryside, as has been made clear by the quality of today's debate and by the fact that eight of my hon. Friends elected to make their maiden speeches. That is a clear demonstration of the genuine Conservative empathy with the countryside, rather than the caricature that we are only interested in hunting. Indeed, until 9.15 this evening, the only person to have mentioned hunting in this debate was the hon. Member for Lewes (Norman Baker).
	This debate gives me the opportunity to welcome the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the hon. Member for South Dorset (Jim Knight), and I look forward to debating the Bill with him during its further stages. We have heard a number of maiden speeches today, including that of the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Mr. Horwood). I am afraid that he lost my support when he suggested that people should go to Cheltenham racecourse rather than to Newmarket in my constituency. We also heard eight exceptional maiden speeches from Conservative Members, all of whom bring credit to these Benches. My hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Mr. Goodwill) clarified the distinction between trial bikes and trail bikes—there is a great difference between the two—and referred to the new land army of bureaucrats with clipboards. I understand from today's paper that he is a member of the new model army, and we look forward to his further contributions.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Ilford, North (Mr. Scott) spoke with great fervour of the joy of representing the constituency in which he grew up. He spoke of the importance of local accountability and democracy and of the protection of green fields—an issue that arose again and again during the debate. My hon. Friend the Member for Rugby and Kenilworth (Jeremy Wright) also mentioned it, when he referred to the damage done by bad planning decisions taken in Kenilworth. He also spoke of the need to decide what we want the countryside to be and of the interdependence of agriculture and the environment.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Mrs. Villiers) rightly paid tribute to Sydney Chapman—all of us across the House miss his company—and reminded us of his environmental credentials. She, too, raised the issue of the impact of development and told us that a third of her constituency consisted of green belt and open space.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Weston-Super-Mare (John Penrose) made a lucid and fluent maiden speech about the unchanging nature of parts of his constituency. He also mentioned the problems of planning and overdevelopment in other parts of the area. His views on that were shared by my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Milton Keynes (Mr. Lancaster), who illustrated that his constituency consists of more than concrete cows—it contains real countryside and real rural communities.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Mr. Jackson) rightly paid tribute to English Nature, which is based in his constituency, and showed himself to be the robust Member that we in Cambridgeshire have long known that he had the potential to be. My hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs (Mr. Herbert) used the words "kindness" and "Whips" in the same sentence, which he will probably not do for much longer. He also spoke of the problems of new housing and its impact on the countryside.
	In moving our amendment, my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin) rightly said that we support many of the measures in the Bill. The issue of green lanes, in relation to trail riding and four-wheel drive vehicles, has been widely rehearsed across the Chamber tonight, and it is clear that there is unanimity among everyone who has spoken, not only on the nature of the problem, but on the need to get on with sorting it out quickly, as the hon. Member for Sherwood (Paddy Tipping) said. I also endorse everything that my hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset (Mr. Walter) has just said.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (Robert Key) made the point that many of the people concerned want mud to make their journeys more exciting. In relation to the Human Rights Act 1998 getting in the way of this legislation, I find it difficult to accept that walkers or riders are denied their human rights because they cannot walk or ride where that mud is.
	Of course, we support the measures to improve protection of sites of special scientific interest, wildlife, biodiversity and many other areas. All the concerns that we might have on the detail can be addressed in Committee. I hope and, from earlier conversations, believe that the Minister will seek to engage constructively on those issues. But if I may say so, all those parts have been added to what is clearly a suitable legislative vehicle—part 1 of the Bill. Because part 1 is seriously wanting in achieving the objectives that the Government lay down, we must oppose the Bill, and have therefore tabled the amendment. I say to the hon. Member for Lewes (Norman Baker), who scorned our position, that it is because we believe the flaws of part 1 are too major to be addressed by amendment in Committee that we have decided to table an amendment on Second Reading.
	A great deal has been made of simplification, removal of red tape and fewer visits—all those words were used by the Secretary of State—but I want to give one example of the sort of problem that exists today, and that will not be helped one iota by the proposals in this Bill. Unfortunately, the source of the story must be anonymous, as the farmer involved is understandably concerned about what might happen as regards the officials involved.
	The issue is one of a long-redundant ferry operating across an estuary in England, where the hard standing had been neglected for a century. A meeting was held to discuss restoring it. The meeting took all morning, and was attended by two farmers who owned the land, one part-time volunteer ferry operator, one member of the local voluntary amenity association, somebody from the Environment Agency, two people from the planning department, one from English Nature, and two from the joint area of outstanding natural beauty partnership. Of the 10 people there, six were being paid by the taxpayer, but the Bill would not have made any difference—it would not have reduced attendance at that meeting by a single person. We cannot expect real change unless the problem of bureaucracy is properly addressed.
	We largely agree with the critique of Lord Haskins in relation to the current delivery system, but the Bill does not provide an answer. It creates a potentially massive organisation with conflicting priorities and powers to do anything that it likes. It does nothing to prevent over-zealous use of powers, and that problem already exists. It sets up three funding blocks, but does nothing directly to reduce the number of individual schemes or the form-filling. We are far from persuaded by the Government's position on the issue of the Forestry Commission.
	There is no recognition in the Bill of the importance of economic activity, particularly farming, in care for the countryside. Nowhere in the Bill is there any recognition that the landscape itself is a result of economic activity—not always for the better if judged by today's standards but nevertheless paid for by local economic activity. The countryside and nature of England is not some twee chocolate box scene to be frozen in time: it is home to 23 per cent. of the population, and the workplace of most of them. The Government have delegated some of the delivery to regional development agencies, whereas county councils and local councils could have done a better job with greater accountability. That raises the issue of the voice of those 23 per cent. and the proposed commission for rural communities. That body has no powers, is appointed by the Secretary of State and therefore has no credibility with rural communities.
	No Conservative Member doubts that rural people need a voice. We have watched for eight years while the Government have ignored their plight, even with the Countryside Agency and the rural advocate, so why would an even weaker body make any difference? The real voice of rural people is their elected representatives: local councillors and Members of the House. Indeed, it was that voice that spoke on 5 May and brought my hon. Friends to this place.
	Yet again, we have seen the tendency of the Government to believe that the public are best served by a large organisation lacking direct accountability. The objective of rationalisation and simplification is, of course, worthy but the chosen method is wrong. Instead, the Government should have examined how to simplify the system itself—the complexities of the single farm payment, of the entry level and higher level scheme. Those are all examples where simplification of the schemes could come ahead of changing the structures. The Government should have sought to work with existing local structures and local accountability. The flaws in their proposals are too great to be corrected by amendment. They should think again. I commend the amendment to the House.

Jim Knight: This has been an excellent and welcome early debate on rural affairs, putting the Bill into a wider context. I apologise at the start that I will not have time to respond in detail to the many points that have been made.
	As the Secretary of State said earlier, the Bill is the cornerstone of our plans to achieve the agenda set out in the rural strategy. It will provide the legislative framework to help us to realise our vision of thriving rural communities, of fair access to services for all in the countryside and of rich, diverse landscapes managed and enhanced for current and future generations.
	Our rural reforms will benefit rural businesses, with fewer forms and quicker and better advice fully attuned to rural circumstances. They will benefit rural people, with decisions taken closer to the customer and with a strong advocate for their needs. They will help people to enjoy the countryside and the coast through a single co-ordinated approach to access and to nature. They will help the environment through better sustainable management of the environment, from individual species to the landscape as a whole. Last but not least, they will benefit the taxpayer, with more efficient and effective administration that, over the medium and long term, will save over £20 million a year.
	As we have heard, there have been eight excellent maiden speeches during this debate. I congratulate all those hon. Members and welcome them to the House. I join them in paying tribute to the work of their predecessors: Lawrie Quinn, Linda Perham, Andy King, Sir Sydney Chapman, Brian Cotter, Brian White, Helen Clark and Howard Flight.
	The hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Mr. Goodwill) made an excellent speech, claiming the mantle of the hon. Member for oven chips. Given the confessed rivalry between Scarborough and Whitby, I thought him brave to describe Whitby as the jewel in the crown. The hon. Member for Ilford, North (Mr. Scott) did well in linking his London seat to rural affairs and in proving that the divide often constructed between town and country is often false. We heard a fluent and polished speech by the hon. Member for Rugby and Kenilworth (Jeremy Wright). I look forward to visiting his constituency shortly when I visit the royal show.
	The hon. Member for Chipping Barnet (Mrs. Villiers) paid a particularly warm tribute to Sir Sydney Chapman, saying that the House will be a poorer place for his absence. Judging by her maiden speech, the House and her party will be a richer place for her presence. The hon. Member for Weston-Super-Mare (John Penrose) talked of some of the problems of seaside towns, many of which I recognise from my own constituency. He talked of donkeys; it is clear he will not prove to be one in the House.
	The hon. Member for North-East Milton Keynes (Mr. Lancaster) looks set to make an explosive impact as a firework manufacturer, and the hon. Member for Peterborough (Mr. Jackson) made an excellent start as a champion for his constituents, including staff working at English Nature in Peterborough. I am not surprised at the great start made by the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Mr. Herbert), who I know is a polished performer. I look forward to his support for the reduction in public spending in the Bill, in the tradition of Members for that seat.
	The amendment fails to understand that the purpose of the new body is to preserve and enhance the beauty about which the hon. Member for South Dorset is so poetic. [Interruption.] West Dorset; I am, of course, the Member for South Dorset. [Laughter.] I am equally poetic about the environment. Beauty is important. The right hon. Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin) and I both represent the beautiful Dorset countryside and understand the importance of protecting the environment for the future while developing sustainable access to it for social and economic gain. That is at the very heart of the new purpose for natural England, but we must do so in such a way that we can all enjoy it and so that the right hon. Gentleman's constituents and mine can make a living from it while shaping the landscape for current and future generations.
	Natural England will be an environmental body. Its purpose is to conserve, enhance and manage the natural environment; that will be its priority. It will build on the excellent work of English Nature and the Countryside Agency, and I join my hon. Friend the hon. Member for Stafford (Mr. Kidney) in paying warm tribute to that work. I also applaud the work of the rural development service on agri-environment schemes in particular.
	I believe that we have struck the right balance in forming the purpose of natural England, which will be required to contribute to sustainable development. It will actively seek integrated solutions that achieve the full range of sustainable development. However, natural England remains an environmental body and there will be situations where an integrated solution is not possible. Here we expect natural England to be a trenchant champion of the natural environment, as its statutory purpose makes clear.
	The amendment suggests that we are failing to create a simplified scheme of support for rural communities. By bringing three new bodies together in one new body, we are simplifying arrangements for our customers and providing a streamlined framework for the delivery of support that will help us to cut red tape and confusion. That is at the core of the deregulation and simplification process that we would have expected the Opposition to support.
	The Opposition also seek to deny rural areas the strong independent voice that they will have in the commission for rural communities. The commission has a unique and distinctive role to act as a voice for rural people, undistracted now by delivery functions of its own and with the purpose, set out in clause 18, of promoting awareness to all public and other bodies of rural needs. That is why it is relevant for the commission to be established; it can be a voice in respect of the actions of local authorities and regional development agencies, of which we heard much today, as well as central Government.
	The commission will help to ensure that the Government's policies make a real difference, especially in tackling social disadvantage and economic exclusion. I have to say to the right hon. Member for West Dorset that I am advised that clauses 16 and 25, which he finds so objectionable in terms of undermining the independence of natural England and the commission for rural communities, which the Government want, are nothing new. They are a standard requirement for non-departmental public bodies to ensure accountability for taxpayers' money. English Nature and the Countryside Agency are currently vulnerable to similar powers of direction and I do not hear the right hon. Gentleman saying that they are not sufficiently independent.
	Many Members raised the issue of rights of way and great concern has been raised, most passionately by my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann), but by many others. I share the concern that irresponsible drivers of four-by-fours and trail bikes are damaging our byways and some of the most beautiful parts of our countryside. We have consulted at length on the provisions in the Bill and believe that they strike a careful balance. Our overriding aim must be to secure the future sustainability of the rights of way network.
	The Bill will give landowners and others greater certainty about mechanically propelled vehicles' rights on public rights of way. That should result in a reduction in conflict and it is a great step forward from the current situation in the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 of leaving it until 2026 to put in claims for those matters. Under the Bill, claims based on historic evidence would only allow for rights of way to be established for non-motorised vehicles. This will ensure that future use of rights of way will be consistent with their historic use.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood (Paddy Tipping) asked about the date of commencement, as did the hon. Member for Lewes (Norman Baker). We must take care over commencement because we are extinguishing public rights, but if claims are focused on those routes that are most sustainable, the imperative will not be so strong for swift commencement. However, I put this warning on the record: if claims are submitted indiscriminately, I assure hon. Members that we shall have to commence the legislation at the very earliest opportunity.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw asked about the volume of current applications for byways to be open to all traffic and about the use of traffic regulation orders. Such applications are currently lodged with local authorities and will remain there up to commencement. We will have to deal with them under the current legislation. That is the legal advice that I have been given. I would be interested to hear from my hon. Friend what evidence he has of thousands of applications, as we are in close contact with local authorities about the level of such applications and what he said does not reflect our findings. I shall be publishing guidance on the use of traffic regulation orders and rights of way in the summer. I share my predecessor's view that traffic regulation orders are an essential management tool in respect of that issue, to which I am sure we will return in greater detail in Committee.
	The right hon. Member for Fylde (Mr. Jack) and my hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood raised the matters of rural funding streams and the timetable for detailed design. My hon. Friend referred to our response to his Select Committee's report. He will have noted in our response more detail about the three funds that we provided before. If it is any reassurance to him, we intend to have a mature design in place by the end of this year.
	Concern was raised that the costs of setting up natural England will outweigh the savings. I can clarify that the savings envisaged by 2007–08 are £13 million—not the £11 million mentioned by the right hon. Member for West Dorset. We are not complacent and will keep a close eye on the figures and on the benefits both to rural people and the environment that we believe the changes will bring. The changes will pay for themselves within five years and provide £21 million of savings every year thereafter, which I am sure that the whole House would welcome.
	I shall have to correspond with the right hon. Member for Fylde on the issue of information technology.
	In conclusion, Mr. Deputy Speaker, the Bill will underpin the commitments that we made in the rural strategy and the rural manifesto, creating simpler and stronger organisational structures and transforming the way in which we deliver rural and environmental services to customers. It will reduce bureaucracy, devolve decision making, improve services and save money.
	People living in the countryside will benefit from the devolution of decision making closer to the ground. The commission for rural communities will champion their needs, particularly those of people suffering from disadvantage. All will benefit from natural England, too, as it mutually reinforces the objectives of conserving and enhancing all aspects of our natural environment, helping people to enjoy and gain benefit from it. The environment will benefit from greater protection and a more coherent area-based approach to addressing its health, including biodiversity.

David Heath: It is a great pleasure to have this opportunity to discuss local energy generation—an important matter that was not given sufficient emphasis during the general election campaign. There is considerable consensus across the House on at least some of our objectives. I hope that we all agree that reducing demand, either through improvements to home insulation or through greater energy efficiency, should be our starting point for dealing with future energy requirements. I hope also that we agree on the desirability of promoting renewables wherever possible. I have to qualify that by saying that although I believe that all renewables are more benign than the conventional alternatives, I recognise that not all renewables are appropriate to every location, which is why recently a strong view has been expressed that microgeneration—small-scale generation within a locality for a particular household or group of households—may be a more effective alternative, which we should explore.
	Microgeneration can make a significant contribution to our total energy needs. It is often more socially and environmentally acceptable than the alternatives. It allows individuals to contribute directly to energy outcomes and to affect the way in which energy is supplied in their local neighbourhood, and it is often good for the householder to be able to contribute in that way. In addition, it provides a diversity and continuity of supply, which we should all welcome.
	I acknowledge the Government's interest in the subject, which has been expressed on more than one occasion, and I understand that they are drawing up a strategy under section 82 of the Energy Act 2004 to deal with microgeneration. I was heartened by the comments of one of the many predecessors of the hon. Member for Croydon, North (Malcolm Wicks) as Minister for Energy, the hon. and learned Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. O'Brien), who on 15 September 2004 said:
	"We expect to see more micro-CHP, micro-wind, micro-hydro, PV and fuel cells installations, supplying individual customers and buildings and exporting energy to the grid."
	That is precisely my view and it is nice to see that the Government share it.
	There is also a considerable degree of parliamentary interest in the subject, as evidenced by the Bill promoted in the last Parliament by the hon. Members for Nottingham, South (Alan Simpson) and for East Surrey (Mr. Ainsworth) and my hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove (Andrew Stunell). I expect that that measure will be reintroduced in this Parliament.
	Microgeneration takes a number of forms, including micro-combined heat and power; micro-wind, which is being successfully championed by another former Energy Minister, the former Member for Western Isles; fuel cells; and photovoltaics, which I saw being used to great advantage in Japan when I visited with the Committee on Science and Technology. In Japan, there is a much clearer Government policy of incorporating into their equivalent of building regulations requirements for photovoltaics in buildings, which means that in the very near future Japan will have a large number of buildings that are so equipped. Perhaps we in this country should consider varying our building regulations in a similar fashion. To complete the list of methods of microgeneration, we have heat pumps, solar thermal and micro-hydroelectric.
	I shall concentrate on the last of those categories, as I have seen some extraordinarily good examples in my constituency. I recognise their value and I want to see the bureaucratic hurdles that may be preventing a wider expansion of the sector removed, if possible. I note that another of the Minister's predecessors, the hon. Member for East Ham (Mr. Timms), now the Minister for Pensions, said on 29 April 2004 that there could be up to 40,000 locations in the UK where micro-hydro could be implemented. I am happy to say that a significant number of those are in my constituency. My constituency consists of the Somerset levels, which are much too flat to be appropriate for hydroelectric power, and the edge of the Mendip hills, which are very suitable. There are a large number of old mills there which were formerly used for flour or other grinding or in connection with the iron industry in days gone by and which are suitable for conversion.
	We have two extremely active groups in my constituency. One is based in the south Somerset area and is a shining example. I have been pleased to be associated with it by attending the opening and visiting it on a number of occasions. At Gant's mill just outside Bruton, Brian and Alison Shingler have produced an excellent project which is not only generating power, but acting as an educational facility for people visiting the mill. Much of the leg-work and the energy behind these proposals comes from Keith Wheaton-Green who works for South Somerset district council.
	The other group is the Mendip power group. A few months ago I had the opportunity to visit Tellisford mill on the River Frome, where Anthony Batttersby is in the process of installing a water turbine. The Mendip power group has a number of other mills, several of them on the River Frome, such as Stowford, Rode, Shawford, Clifford and Staplemead creamery, and on tributaries, such as Bridge house at Great Elm, Coleford and Witham Hole. In all there are 14 sites associated with the Mendip power group. It is anticipated that those 14 sites will produce 855,000 kWh per year, which is a significant contribution. It is enough to power 195 homes and will save 400 metric tonnes of CO 2 , which is the equivalent of a car travelling 2 million miles. That seems to me a worthwhile objective. Tellisford mill alone will produce 170,000 kWh, which is enough for 40 houses. That is approximately the size of the hamlet of Tellisford, so we have a local energy generation plant that is producing the energy to power that community. That seems a correct way of approaching the problem.
	As regards costs, at Wallbridge mill, another site in the group, there was an existing turbine which needed restoration. That cost £25,000. Tellisford was a ruined mill. It needed a new turbine, which cost £120,000. There is about an 11-year break-even period.
	What are the problems faced by the people at the forefront of addressing the issues of energy production through local power generation? Some of the problems are generic to all microgeneration facilities. Despite the best efforts of Ministers in the Department, which I acknowledge, there is the lack of a co-ordinated approach across the whole. I know that there is an attempt to deal with this, but it is still clear that Government Departments are not entirely at one in providing the clear focus on the need for renewables that we would wish to see.
	I received an unsolicited illustration of that point in the post when it was announced that I had secured this Adjournment debate. Given my constituency's location, the letter came from an unlikely source, the City Remembrancer of the Corporation of London, who points out the difficulties that the Corporation of London has experienced with its combined heat and power system in the City, which, as a result of the introduction of the new electricity trading arrangements, can be economically run only at peak periods when electricity can be sold at higher prices. That is nonsense; the facility is capable of doing so much more, and it seems a shame that it should be partially mothballed in order to meet other requirements.
	There are also fiscal barriers to progress. A correspondence has taken place between not only the Department for Trade and Industry, but other Departments about the application of business rates and income tax. The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs sent Keith Wheaton-Green a helpful letter in which she made it plain that she has a great deal of sympathy for people affected by that point. She was happy to confirm that the existence of a microgeneration facility would not prejudice a domestic property by incurring a business rate liability. If such a microgeneration facility is a business, however, that is not necessarily the case, and such matters are examined individually.
	That letter also states:
	"On income tax, DTI and HM Treasury officials are currently examining this issue in order to see if there is a way of exempting microgenerating householders from income tax when exporting electricity."
	It is dated 7 April 2005, and I would be grateful if the Minister told me whether any advances have been made in that consideration. It seems to me that there is an argument for the introduction of a threshold—perhaps 50 kW—below which there is no risk of incurring either a business rate or income tax liability. Perhaps the Minister will consider that point. Those who are promoting the microgeneration Bill would also like to see a requirement to purchase energy on the part of the utilities, which would provide certainty and stability that is otherwise lacking.
	Those who are interested in hydroelectrics have forcibly pointed out the difficulties with the licensing system. They showed me the forms that they must fill in, which are astonishingly complex. There is virtually no difference between applying to run a small water turbine and applying to run Hinkley Point in terms of the complexity of the information that is required, the volume of impounded water and other similar matters. That makes it very difficult for someone who is not expert even to attempt to apply. The process is lengthy, and it can take more than three months to obtain a licence from the Environment Agency. It is also expensive and can cost more than £2,000, including the necessary advertising costs, and I question whether it is necessary. Could it be subsumed within the planning process? Could we introduce a threshold below which such activities are exempt as permitted development, which might apply to not only water turbines, but micro-wind turbines, too? Such policies would certainly promote the use of microgeneration among householders.
	On financial support, the clear skies grant does not match the required scale of investment in water turbines. The contribution is very small, and the scale of the available grant does not encourage maximum output, which one might expect to be the object of Government policy. If the clear skies grant is changed, I can only put in a plea for its replacement by something simple and non-competitive—it should be certain that a grant will be received once a project is completed in order to encourage a lot of people who might otherwise have doubts.
	Perhaps the Minister might also like to consider the possibility of interest-free loans. I understand that the Government are not normally desperately keen on providing those; nevertheless, if we have a clear policy objective and a high capital outlay, there is clearly an incentive for the Government to look at ways of reducing liabilities for the householder in the early part of an investment period.
	There is a disparity between what the utilities provide in terms of grant, and an incredibly complicated payment system, with renewable obligation certificates, levy exemption certificates, and payments from the utility companies. At the end of a Westminster Hall debate on 23 March, the hon. and learned Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. O'Brien) made an intriguing comment about what he described as ROC-ettes—that is, renewable obligation certificates in a diminutive form appropriate to microgeneration. I wonder whether any further work has been done on that.
	If we are serious about encouraging water turbines, we must accept that it must be a high priority in the use of our water resources and should perhaps have a higher priority than some of the other competing interests. There should be an onus on the responsible authorities to ensure riverine maintenance in order to allow turbines to work effectively.
	There are all sorts of reasons why this technology is appropriate. Its locality means that there is a minimal line loss. It promotes economic activity in rural areas. It has the capacity to operate in environmentally sensitive locations. That is rare for any technology, but this is also something that enhances local life, brings historic buildings back into use and aids their conservation, gives a continuity to all the technologies that may be worth rediscovering, and contributes to the overall energy requirement of the country. It is a technology that is worth supporting and whose time has come.
	It would be very good if there were permanently established opportunities for householders to see such technologies in action around the country. I spent the last week at the Royal Bath and West show, where it occurred to me that it would be a perfect site for a permanent exhibition given the number of people who go through there and are interested in the use of technologies in rural areas and diversity within the agricultural community.
	This is a perfect opportunity to show the potential for alternative technologies in producing energy in ways that are entirely compatible with the rural environment. I hope that the Minister may be able to help us in pointing the way forward.

Malcolm Wicks: It is a pleasure to make my first House of Commons speech as Energy Minister on such an important subject, on which I share the enthusiasm of the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath). I congratulate him on securing the debate.
	Microgeneration is a key area of the Government's energy policy. It has the potential to play a significant role as we move towards our objective of sustainable, reliable and affordable energy for all, delivered through competitive markets. Increased deployment of microgeneration technologies will have a beneficial impact on all four of the Government's energy policy goals. These technologies can reduce carbon emissions; help to ensure reliable energy supplies by reducing the load on the distribution network and helping to avoid over-dependence on energy imports; promote competitive markets by offering the consumer a wider choice of the means to fulfil their heat and electricity needs; and help to reduce fuel poverty, provided that the fairly substantial up-front costs can be defrayed.
	Many different technologies fall under the microgeneration heading: solar power, including photovoltaics, which the hon. Gentleman mentioned; micro-wind turbines; ground source heat pumps; air source heat pumps; and micro-combined heat and power, to name but a few. Micro-hydro power is an illustrious member of this group with a proud history—in the 18th and 19th centuries thousands of mills in this country used the power of water to grind flour and wheat. I wonder whether when they were built they had their protesters too. I understand that a proportion of those old mill sites would be appropriate for generating electricity.
	There are obvious limitations to the scope of micro-hydro installations, but this is nevertheless an important technology with much potential in parts of the country that are fortunate enough to benefit from free-flowing water courses.
	Our commitment to promoting all forms of microgeneration is long-established. The Energy White Paper set out our vision for 2020—a vision that includes much more diverse local energy generation. We want to see more of these exciting technologies providing heat and electricity for individual consumers and communities. We are already doing much to make that vision a reality. For example, since 2002 we have provided £41 million of support for solar-power projects, and £12.5 million for household and community renewables projects through the clear skies initiative.
	We have ensured that most microgeneration technologies benefit from a low—5 per cent.—VAT level. We amended the renewables obligation order to make it easier for smaller generators to claim renewables obligation certificates. Last year we issued planning policy statement 22 to establish that local authorities could set targets for on-site renewable generation. We have been working closely with Ofgem and other key stakeholders to address various technical issues relating to metering and connection to the distribution network.
	Let me deal specifically with the support given to micro-hydro projects. We have been keen to promote hydropower through the clear skies initiative, and so far 12 projects have received funding. As the hon. Gentleman knows, South Somerset district council is working in partnership with mill owners to install a number of small-scale hydro plants and energy efficiency measures on mill sites across the area. Two mills—one, I suspect, the one that the hon. Gentleman mentioned, Gants mill—are already on line and generating power, with another seven scheduled for completion by the end of 2006. The project has received £93,000 from the Energy Saving Trust.
	Despite all that activity, we are not complacent, and recognise that we need to do more. The hon. Gentleman will be aware of our commitment under the Energy Act 2004 to produce a strategy for the promotion of microgeneration by April 2006.
	There is much more work be done in assessing the real costs and benefits of microgeneration in the long term. We need to have a clear picture of the barriers that currently prevent widespread take-up. We must develop a substantial evidence base that allows us to identify the most cost-effective measures to promote microgeneration technologies.
	Three factors appear to be acting as barriers—although the hon. Gentleman has highlighted possible other factors—and hindering the development of mature markets for microgeneration products. First, there is the elevated price of most microgeneration technologies. A lack of demand to date has restricted the extent to which the industry has been able to exploit scale economies. The infancy of the industry and the significant expenditure on research and development associated with product development also contribute to the existing high costs that deter many consumers.
	Secondly, there is a lack of information. Inadequate promotion and provision of information about microgeneration products is a contributory factor in slow take-up rates. In many cases, consumers are unaware of the existence of such products and the benefits they can bring through reduced energy bills. Finally, there are some technical constraints relating to metering arrangements and connection to the distribution network.
	The hon. Gentleman raised other issues: for instance, planning and building regulations. I am advised that the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister is in the process of reviewing the relevant part of the building regulations—part L, I am informed. The hon. Gentleman also mentioned income tax and business rates. I can tell him that initial meetings have taken place between officials in my Department and in Her Majesty's Treasury, and we will continue to explore those issues.
	The hon. Gentleman talked about permitted development status for micro-hydro. I am advised that the ODPM is reviewing householder consents, and I shall be happy to raise the hon. Gentleman's points with the relevant Minister. He also referred to the complexity of licensing systems. I am told that the Environment Agency's hydropower working group is developing a best-practice guide for the hydropower industry, and I hope that in that way some of the issues will be explored.
	To inform our work on the strategy, I shall shortly be publishing for consultation a document that will look at many of the issues the hon. Gentleman has raised. The aim of the consultation is to stimulate a wide-ranging debate on some of the difficult issues that seem to be acting as barriers to the widespread uptake of microgeneration. I do not think that there will be any easy answers, but by working with key stakeholders and interested parties—and indeed the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome, with whom I want to talk further about this—I hope to develop a strategy for the promotion of microgeneration that will take us towards a future with much more local and diverse generation. There is no silver bullet, no single answer, when it comes to fulfilling the future energy requirements of our nation in the 21st century, but I am convinced that renewables—and within that category, microgeneration—have a significant part to play.
	Question put and agreed to.
	Adjourned accordingly at five minutes to Eleven o'clock.